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Meditation: Can it Change You? (03:01)

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The ancient art of meditation has bled out of religious practices and into everyday life, touted with being able to improve memory, alleviate depression, and slow aging. Ex-drug lord Nick Brewer was imprisoned in South America where he discovered yoga and meditation.

Learn Through the Doing(02:07)

Dr. Graham Phillips is embarking on an eight week experiment to see how meditation works. He visits psychologist Dr. Richard Chambers who instructs him on meditation.

Hard Evidence(03:38)

Dr. Neil Bailey puts Phillips through brain tests, including an EEG and an MRI so that Phillips can have evidence of his brain's changes or lack thereof after meditating for two months. Phillips describes what happens in the brain during meditation.

Train the Brain(03:24)

Meditation exercises the "attention muscle," which may control the amygdala. When the amygdala is enacted, fear and anxiety occur, while meditation can help regulate the amygdala.

Understanding Stress(03:59)

Phillips reports to Chambers that he has felt stress reduction since he started practicing meditation. Venerable Thubten Chokyi champions meditation and works to teach meditation to inmates.

Intervening in Brain Function(03:31)

After eight weeks, Phillips' results indicate that his behavioral performance has heightened. His memory, in particular, has improved. Actual changes in the gray matter density of Phillips' brain are also evident.

Description

Meditation, can it really change you? From infamous criminals, to powerful corporations, to some of the world’s most successful athletes, meditation has never been so popular. But can it really make you smarter, happier and healthier? New research shows that it can affect the body as well as the mind, slow down the aging process, and even alter the structure of the brain. Dr. Graham Phillips embarks on an eight week meditation course and undergoes a raft of rigorous brain tests and scans, to find out if the ancient art lives up to the current hype.